


Things Shaped In Passing

by oncetherewasnot



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Sirens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncetherewasnot/pseuds/oncetherewasnot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik came to Charles from the sea. All things considered, it’s terribly appropriate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Shaped In Passing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/6527.html?thread=11438975#t11438975).

_It was fated that they would live only until someone who heard their singing passed by unharmed [...] For when by his cleverness he passed the rocks where they dwelt, they threw themselves into the sea._   —Hyginus, Fabulae 141.

  
 **i.**  
In Erik’s dreams, it’s always like this:

Ash falls from the sky, like snow, discolouring the world.

He tries, ceaselessly, wretchedly to move the coin, and the tiny disk remains still every time, mocking him.

Metal will not obey him. It drags him down into the deep, implacable.

Dark waters close above him.

  
 **ii.**  
Charles Xavier is an exceptionally charming man. Under different circumstances, Erik would be willing to admit this, if only in the privacy of his mind. But it’s in his nature to dislike attention, and Charles fusses over him like Erik is some helpless child. As soon as they’re on the ship, he asks for blankets and a hot drink, takes Erik belowdecks, excited and chattering all the while.

 _You’re not alone_ , echoes in Erik’s mind, soft and reassuring.

  
 **iii.**  
On the night they first meet, Erik says, _You were in my head_ like he needs to hear it aloud before he can believe it.

Perhaps it’s an odd sense of self-preservation that makes him say _Stay out of my head_ to Charles the very next day. He doesn’t understand how someone can insinuate into his life so completely in the course of several hours, why it’s so easy to find himself laid bare before a man who looks at him with sparkling, kind eyes and tells Erik he knows everything about him.

Erik himself cannot claim he knows everything.

Still, he knows he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. If the thought of leaving was ever in his head, he knows he did not mean it.

  
 **iv.**  
‘Is he always like that?’ Erik asks, stirring his tea idly and watching Charles march out of the kitchen with a purposeful air and a sheaf of paper containing hastily scrawled training plans for the week. He’s got a house full of friends and a mind full of ideas and enthusiasm radiates off him in waves.

Raven looks up at Erik, as if startled from a dream.

‘Like what?’

Erik opens his mouth, stops. Fumbles for a word to try and explain Charles and the jumble of feelings he leaves in his wake, like a tornado. There isn’t one. Erik supposes he will never find it.

  
 **v.**  
Metal obeys him, but it doesn’t love him.

Erik has made it into an instrument of revenge – elegant and efficient, but an instrument nonetheless. He has learned to take, but he never gives back. He doesn’t understand the longing of an amorphous mass seeking to be given shape and purpose, to have life poured into it by the hands of a creator.

He can command it to move, to kill, to bend for him, but there is always something at the core, something he cannot comprehend. Out of his grasp and in the way of his power.

  
 **vi.**  
There are no lakes around the expanse of Charles’ property. No rivers. No ponds. No fountains in the garden. Erik doesn’t think it’s strange at all - there are countless houses that aren’t built near lakes or rivers, countless gardens without ponds or fountains. There are thousands of miles inland where the smell of the sea does not reach. Why should it be strange?

And still, when he remembers Charles on the night they met, soaked and trembling under a brown military issue blanket, salt drying in his hair and the scent of dark waters on him, Erik thinks he has never looked more right.

  
 **vii.**  
One day, Charles asks him to do the impossible, and then shows him how.

He can feel the satellite dish resist him, the sheer size of the metal mass repelling his will as if to say, _You have no business with me, no purpose I can serve other than to perform a trick for your amusement._

It hurts him. It hurts him still that Charles is there, looking out of the corner of his eye, giddy with anticipation and full with trust, and Erik cannot give him what he wants.

The memory Charles retrieves for him has been buried too long. He dives into Erik’s mind for it like he would into murky waters. Digs into the seabed and releases it, and the resurface leaves them both gasping.

Erik finds an unexpected sense of wonder from Charles. Curiosity. Reverence. _Let me see_ , he pleads, and they aren’t words, not exactly, but there is longing. Erik understands longing when it comes from a heart. _Let me see. Let me see_ , meek and hopeful, with an undercurrent of something that Erik would recognize as hunger if he knew to look for it.

The dish turns for him. He turns it for Charles.

  
 **viii.**  
If Erik could see Charles’ dreams, he would know they are always like this:

Barren rock and the empty expanse of water.

No movement, save for the waves breaking against the coast. No sound, save for the howling of the wind.

Parched skin and twisted wings, burned and salt-bleached.

Loneliness, as vast and oppressing as the depths of the sea.

  
 **ix.**  
He speaks to Erik of peace, as if he expects him to have no trouble understanding the notion. Charles, in turn, doesn’t understand the need for revenge, doesn’t understand violence. He is made for soft things, kind things, made to build a home for the unwanted and unloved, made to teach children. Erik thinks he cannot see a sliver of selfishness in him.

Revenge is possibly the most selfish thing in the world. For a brief moment, Erik wishes he could do better for Charles, he could put it off for a while and maybe in time he will learn to let it go. He can feel Charles’ longing wash over him in waves, in the same odd harmonics that are not quite words, but which he understands so well. _Don’t go. Don’t go. Please._

Hopeful yet sad, with an undercurrent of something Erik would recognize as resignation if he knew to look for it.

 _Stay with me._

  
 **x.**  
It’s only fitting that it should end where it began for them, with the sound of breaking waves and the bitter tang of salt and seaweed all around.

Briefly, there is another kind of drowning, and Erik finds himself free. In the confines of a helmet he finds himself free, but he cannot tell from what, exactly.

Charles lies in his arms, pale, mouth drawn in a tight, pained line. His eyes are impossibly sad.

 _No turning back_ are the first words that can no longer be spoken between them.

  
 **xi.**  
Charles dreams of the deep, of the calcified skeletons of ships sunken before they could reach him.

He dreams of human voices, shrill and desperate against the roar of waves, and his arms ache for something to hold.

  
 **xii.**  
Erik’s dreams are always the same, have been for years. Yet on some nights, he finds unfamiliar things creeping into them.

Ash falls from the sky, painting the world a dull grey.

(The wind howls and waves smash against the barren rocks.)

The coin spins and clatters on the floor, stained with blood.

(Ships sleep in the deep like the carcasses of ancient sea monsters.)

Metal, obedient but still unconquered.

(Loneliness, vast and incomprehensible, weighs him down like an anchor.)

Dark waters close above him.


End file.
